brennen
/
lurkers-guide


								<!-- TITLE The Deconstruction of Falling Stars -->


								<h2><a name="OV">Overview</a></h2>


								<blockquote><cite>

								Fourth season finale.  A look back at the impact of Babylon 5 from 100, 500,

								1000, and 1000000 years in the future.

								</cite>


								</blockquote>


								<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/088">8.50</a>


								Production number: 422 (but see <a href="#NO.prodnum">Notes</a>)

								Original air week: October 27, 1997

								<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DGBEY/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: January 6, 2004


								Written by J. Michael Straczynski

								Directed by Stephen Furst

								</pre>


								<strong>Warning: This episode contains spoilers for future episodes, as

								it's mostly in the form of retrospectives from future viewpoints.</strong>


								<p>

								<hr size=3>


								<h2><a name="BP">Plot Points</a></h2>

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@877891621 Some people on Earth are highly skeptical that the

									Interstellar Alliance will work, and distrust Sheridan's motives and

									ability.


								   <li>@@@877891621 The station will be under the command of a Captain

									Lochley in 2262.


								   <li>@@@877891621 With Sheridan's permission, a colony of telepaths will be

									established on Babylon 5 sometime in 2262.  Eventually they will turn

									against him.


								   <li>@@@878761096 Garibaldi will be held hostage, possibly by the telepaths,

									in 2262.  The hostage situation will end in gunfire.


								   <li>@@@877891621 Babylon 5 will be destroyed (though under what

									circumstances isn't clear) in 2282.


								   <li>@@@877941253 Sheridan will die in 2282 under mysterious circumstances

									that will still be debated 80 years later.  Popular opinion will hold

									that he died on Minbar, but not everyone will agree.  Later legend will

									hold that he was carried bodily into heaven.


								   <li>@@@877891621 Delenn will live until at least 2362, though she'll spend

									many of the intervening years out of public view, leading some to

									wonder if she's still alive.


								   <li>@@@877891621 In 2762, Earth will again be divided into two factions,

									one in favor of breaking away from the Interstellar Alliance and

									another in favor of remaining.  The two sides will launch a devastating

									war, rendering the surface of the Earth nearly uninhabitable.


								   <li>@@@877891621 In 3262, the survivors of that war, now known as the

									"Great Burn," will largely have lost all records of the time before

									the war.  At least one order of monks, marginally part of the Roman

									Catholic Church, will work to gather and preserve historical records.

									They'll be aided in secret by agents of the Rangers, who will slowly

									"discover" pieces of pre-Burn technology to inch Earth's people

									back toward the stars.


								   <li>@@@877891621 The Rangers will still exist in some form a million years

									hence, and will still consider Sheridan and Delenn to be their

									founders.  They will be involved in the building of something called

									"New Earth," though what that is isn't clear.


								   <li>@@@878548310 One million years in the future, humans will apparently

									have evolved into noncorporeal entities (like Lorien,

									<a href="072.html">"Into the Fire"</a>)

									and will make use of Vorlon-style encounter suits and organic ships.


								   <li>@@@877892014 Earth's sun will go nova in a million years.


								</ul>


								<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@878106431 Is Garibaldi back on B5 to stay?  What about Lise?


								   <li>@@@877891621 Who were the people holding Garibaldi hostage?  The

									telepaths?


								   <li>@@@878109828 Who, if anyone, did Garibaldi's captor shoot?  Or was

									the shot fired by someone else?


								   <li>@@@878107064 What was the incident with Sheridan and Delenn's son?


								   <li>@@@878760370 What happened to Mars and Earth's other colonies

									during the Great Burn?


								   <li>@@@877941253 Why did the sun go nova?  As the sun isn't expected to

									do so naturally for billions of years, if at all (according to

									20th-century astrophysics, anyway) did someone or something cause it

									to happen?


								</ul>


								<h2><a name="AN">Analysis</a></h2>

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@878760738 Among the crowd greeting Sheridan and Delenn as they

									returned to B5 was a man holding a sign reading, "Sic transit gloria

									mundis."  That translates approximately to, "Worldly glory/fame is

									transitory."  That could be viewed as a negative comment, expressing

									the opinion that whatever they build will be temporary.  On the other

									hand, that's also the Latin phrase spoken to a newly elected Pope after

									the ballots are burned and the ashes dropped before him, a reminder

									that a greater purpose is being served and any individual's contribution

									is small in comparison.  In any case,

									it appears at least one human agrees with Londo's opinion that marriage

									celebrations should include somber reflection.


									<p>@@@898570420

									The historical origin of the phrase is of note, given Sheridan's

									recent victory against Earth.  Whenever a Roman general returned from a

									successful campaign, a great parade or Triumph would be held for him.

									The general would ride in a chariot, face painted red and in purple

									robes.  Behind him, a slave would hold a golden crown of laurels and

									whisper the phrase into his ear.


								   <li>@@@879106936 Though the implication was that the gunshot at the end of

									the video clip in 2362 was directed at Garibaldi, that's not certain.

									It could as easily have been someone else firing at one of his captors

									to prevent his death.


								   <li>@@@879106936 The 2362 historians' interpretation of the outcome of

									Sheridan allowing telepaths to set up a colony of Babylon 5 -- the

									worst mistake of his career, they claimed he as much as said -- may

									have been shaded by their less than charitable views about Sheridan.

									The actual events may have been much less disastrous than they

									implied.


								   <li>@@@879105829 It's possible Delenn's appearance in 2362 wasn't entirely

									a coincidence.  The moderator appeared to be sympathetic to her point

									of view (though he could have just been playing devil's advocate to

									spark discussion) and may have warned her of the upcoming broadcast

									and its likely tone.


								   <li>@@@878760738 The holographic simulation of Franklin was trying to

									create alien/human hybrids, the same accusation that was leveled against

									B5 by the Clark administration's propagandists

									(<a href="074.html">"The Illusion of Truth."</a>)


								   <li>@@@877892014 The Ranger said he still had time to join "the

									celebration" before the sun went nova.  What was being celebrated?

									The Earth's destruction?  New Earth's creation?


								   <li>@@@884632135 Londo said when he came aboard the station that jubilant

									celebration was how Centauri celebrated a funeral.  Perhaps the humans

									of a million years hence took up that custom, and were celebrating

									the death of their homeworld Centauri-style.  If so, it would provide

									a subtle symmetry between the beginning of the episode and the end.


								   <li>@@@877941253 The Ranger's rush to send the records to New Earth would

									seem to imply that the sun going nova wasn't an expected event,

									which in turn implies that it was artificially induced.  If the nova

									were a natural event, there would presumably have been years -- more

									likely centuries -- of warning, plenty of time to evacuate people and

									historical records.


								   <li>@@@878761096 The Ranger's effort to preserve Earth's history echoes

									Sinclair's comment in

									<a href="004.html">"Infection"</a>

									that all of humanity's accomplishments would be lost when the sun

									died unless people took to the stars.


								   <li>@@@878759526 The Ranger's parting line, "This is how the world ends.

									Swallowed in fire, but not in darkness," echoes Kosh's reply to

									Emperor Turhan

									(<a href="031.html">"The Coming of Shadows"</a>)

									that the situation would end in fire.


								   <li>@@@878106388 One other event was predicted to occur in a million years:

									it's when Jason Ironheart said he'd see Sinclair again

									(<a href="006.html">"Mind War."</a>)

									Coincidence, or does Ironheart (or Sinclair) play some part in whatever

									is happening in the distant future?  The Ranger appeared to be

									noncorporeal, implying perhaps that the rest of humanity took a

									million years to catch up to Ironheart's level of development.


								</ul>


								<h2><a name="NO">Notes</a></h2>

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@878938771 The 2262 newscast referred to Sheridan's visit to the

									Dalai Lama in Tibet.  But the picture shown was of a group of Buddhist

									monks with golden robes, typical of the Golden Triangle area (Vietnam,

									Thailand, Cambodia.)  Tibetan Buddhist monks wear maroon robes.  Of

									course, it's possible that changed between the 20th and 23rd centuries.


								   <li>@@@878760018 The first question in the 2362 sequence was asked by

									someone named Ray Winston.  This may be a reference to the cartoon

									"The Real Ghostbusters," on which JMS served as producer.  Ray and

									Winston were the names of two of the characters.


								   <li>@@@878106758 The insignia on Daniel's uniform in 2762 was nearly

									identical to the logo of the Nazi SS organization.


								   <li>@@@878761448 Daniel's language (e.g. "realfacts" and "goodfacts")

									is a reference to George Orwell's "1984," which introduced terms

									such as "doublespeak" and dealt heavily with the relation between

									language and propaganda.


								   <li>@@@879106565 Daniel also made a brief mention of "psychohistory,"

									which is a reference to Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" novels.  In the

									novels, psychohistory is a science that can predict large-scale

									human societal behavior.


								   <li>@@@878109743 It's possible Garibaldi is responsible for the Great

									Burn.  The war between Earth's two factions might have proceeded

									the same way with or without Garibaldi's subterfuge.  But it's not

									inconceivable that if Daniel's superiors had made the first strike,

									the other side might have capitulated, or the war might have been

									over more quickly for other reasons.  Of course, it's also possible

									that it would have been even worse, perhaps wiping out Earth

									altogether.


								   <li>@@@877971071 The 3262 sequence may be a nod to Walter Miller's novel

									"A Canticle for Leibowitz," about an order of monks trying to preserve

									the knowledge of the past after a devastating war.


								   <li>@@@877901477 During the 3262 sequence, the Roman numerals in the lower

									left corner appear to be camera numbers; they corresponded to the

									different angles from which the scene was shown.  Presumably the

									cameras were all well-hidden.


								   <li>@@@879105726 The caption under the picture of the Ranger in the book

									Brother Stephen is illuminating appears to say, "Rangers eis nomen

									est," which translates to, "Their name is Rangers."


								   <li>@@@878326923 <a name="NO.prodnum">Although this episode is part of</a>

									the fifth-season production run, it's actually the fourth-season

									finale.  The fifth-season finale,

									<a href="110.html">"Sleeping in Light,"</a>

									was shot during the fourth-season production run because it wasn't

									clear that the show was being renewed; once the renewal was announced,

									another episode had to be substituted.  For some reason the onscreen

									credits at the end of the episode don't reflect that; they list a

									production number of 422 rather than the more accurate 501.


								   <li>@@@877892102 The title sequence was changed slightly from the regular

									season four sequence.  A clip of the Agamemnon flying through the

									explosion of the defense platform in

									<a href="086.html">"Endgame"</a>

									was inserted just before the cast credits, and Claudia Christian's

									name was removed from the cast list.


								   <li>@@@877892014 The episode's dedication: "Dedicated to

									all the people who predicted that the Babylon Project would fail in its

									mission.  Faith manages."  This is probably a dig at pundits on Usenet

									and elsewhere who confidently said every year that B5 wouldn't

									be renewed for another season.


								   <li>@@@871238027 Shooting began August 18, 1997.


								</ul>


								<h2><a name="JS">jms speaks</a></h2>

								<ul>


								   <li>@@@878151773 <em>Why was Claudia Christian's name taken out of the

									credits but Jason Carter's left in?</em><br>

									We had no choice.  Contractually, when we moved "Sleeping in Light" into

									the fifth season, we had to move her credit from "Deconstruction" or

									incur an additional episode's payment.  We didn't even realize this

									until WB called and put us on notice about this literally 3 days before

									the episode was uplinked.  It wasn't a choice we had; they said that it

									had to be moved.  We could leave Jason in the credits because he didn't

									appear in SiL.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878760264 <em>Any significance to the Agamemnon clip used to

									replace her credit?</em><br>

									It seemed an appropriate placeholder when WB told us we had to

									omit Claudia's credit because she also appears in (the new) 522,

									"Sleeping in Light," to avoid incurring fees.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878843757 <em>Since this episode was numbered 422 rather than 501,

									will the production numbers of season 5 episodes be changed

									too?</em><br>

									Yes, the S5 episodes will be renumbered prior to broadcast.


									<p>

									More Soviet Revisionism in action....


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878758482 <em>Do you ever get the urge to thumb your nose at

									people on the net who predict B5's demise?</em><br>

									Nope...no intentions of doing that.


									<p>

									I have something MUCH better in mind....


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878758482 It's discreet...but not obscure.


									<p>

									And best of all...it's eternal...and the whackos who've bugged me

									for five years are not.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878760264 A few people have interpreted the final

									card as "meanspirited" (when it's on one level a reaction *to* five

									years of constant carping and meanspiritedness from lots of sectors,

									from the nets to the press and elsewhere)...but what it is, is a

									statement of hope.  That whenever you try something different, there

									are going to be naysayers, and people who say it can't be done, and

									certainly can't be done by *you*.


									<p>

									It ain't just B5, it's any dream out there.


									<p>

									And in the end, they are wrong.


									<p>

									Faith manages.


									<p>

									That's the message of the card.


									<p>

									That, and the truth that in 10 years the naysayers will be

									forgotten, and made irrelevant...but the show, the *show*...goes on.

									And will be around long after they and I have gone to dust.  And all

									people will know when they see that card, 50 years from now, was that

									some jerks said it couldn't be done, and they were wrong, because they

									are *always* wrong.  If you have the dream, the ability and the

									passion, you can bring your dreams to life despite overwhelming

									opposition.  That's the message.


									<p>

									But for those on the other side, they will never see anything

									other than meanspiritedness because that's all they can *ever*

									see...because that's all they can bring to the table.


									<p>

									There's an old saying about books, which I'll rephrase to

									include B5: Babylon 5 is like a book, and a book is like a mirror: if

									an ass peers in, you can't exactly expect an apostle to peer out.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878843545 There will always be short-term

									setbacks, but as long as we climb back a few inches higher than we were

									before we fell down, we keep moving toward the goal of becoming a

									better people, and getting off the planet.  Taking our place among the

									stars.  While it's vaguely possible that I may *see* a Mars colony

									sometime within my lifetime, I know that I will never live there...but

									that ain't the point, it isn't a victory if *I* do it, and a failure if

									*I* don't, it's if *we* do it or not.  Maybe we'll do it today, maybe

									we'll do it tomorrow, the point is to decide to DO it, and then by god

									DO IT.


									<p>

									And yeah, that little closing card is going to remain on the

									show for its life...which will be long, long after its detractors (and

									admittedly myself) have gone to dust.  On the one hand, it is a

									statement of hope to anyone else out there who has a dream, to follow

									it no matter who speaks against you, no matter the odds, no matter what

									they say to or about you, no matter what roadblocks they throw in your

									way.  What matters is that you remain true to your vision.


									<p>

									On the other hand, for the reviewers and the pundits and the

									critics and the net-stalkers who have done nothing but rag on this show

									for five years straight, it is also a giant middle finger composed of

									red neon fifty stories tall, that will burn forever in the night.


									<p>

									In billiards, we call that a bank-shot.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878892882 <em>Does the Great Burn mean the B5 crew ultimately

									failed?</em><br>

									It depends on your point of view.


									<p>

									The fact, as I see it, is that no one and nothing will ever solve

									all of our problems at once, now and forever.  People will always be

									people.  You can't wave a magic wand and fix it all.


									<p>

									Yes, there was another war...but had the Shadows not been stopped by

									our characters, there likely wouldn't have been a human race at ALL

									anymore.


									<p>

									Yes, there was a war, and many died in it...as tends to happen in

									war...but the nominal right side in it came out on top, which would

									not have been the case but for Garibaldi's simulacra giving them a

									leg up on things.


									<p>

									We have had, continue to have, and will always have wars, and grief,

									and struggle...we will climb up and fall down...but each time we

									climb a little higher, and in the end, we *do* build the world that

									our ancestors would have wanted for us...we *do* leave the cradle at

									last, and we take our place among the stars teaching those who

									follow us.


									<p>

									For my money, that's as happy an ending as we or anyone can ever

									hope for.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878758392 <em>You spoiled the events of season five!</em><br>

									As with anything else, B5 (in whatever incarnation) is about *process*.

									You saw Londo being strangled by G'Kar...but you didn't know how they

									got there. You know the result of the Earth/Minbari war...but I suspect

									there will be a lot of surprises in "In the Beginning."


									<p>

									As with all things, the joy is in the going.  We all know we're going to

									die, that as the poet said, "we are born astride the grave."  But

									knowing that inevitable reality has never stopped human endeavor

									before....


									<p>

									It's the journey and the doing that matters.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@879621150 Re: speechwriters and others hanging around after the

									fall...look at the remains of the Soviet Union.  After the fall of the

									communist party, you'd think they would all have been run out of town

									on a rail.  But many of them just shifted over and found similar

									positions, or kept the communist party going, after everything they'd

									done.


									<p>

									The problem with most people is that they don't hold a grudge

									near long enough.


									<p>

									I'd have to check, but yeah, I believe we stuck a ranger symbol

									on the encounter suit.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878761612 <em>About the 2362 sequence</em><br>

									Stephen filmed that sequence by having all of the cast on the

									set at the same time, running multiple film cameras to get each version

									"live."


								<p>

								   <li>@@@879105446 <em>From a discussion of a 1997 convention featuring

									Stephen Furst</em><br>

									BTW, if you want to flip Stephen out, and you get this before leaving

									the con, give him the following message from me (I don't have the hotel

									info at hand).  Tell him Joe says this:


									<p>

									"Don't worry anymore about using mainly securecam style coverage in act

									3, I've just come up with another approach where I can cover it in

									dialogue to let you do whatever you want with the camera, so you'll

									have all the flexibility there you want."


									<p>

									Here's a use of a convention you haven't seen much before....


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878843545 <em>The "Just Married" label was missing from the

									shuttle when it docked.</em><br>

									The painted letters were on the *right* side of the shuttle as

									it went in.  The CGI inside the bay showed the left side.


									<p>

									We don't miss these things.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878761096 <em>How did Delenn get into the studio?</em><br>

									Most TV studios that I've seen have back doors that open out onto the

									back lot or the outside for fire control reasons.  You can get into any

									of the 3 B5 stages from the outside in, oh, about 5 seconds through any

									of a number of doors.  (Note to anyone looking on: yes, those stage

									doors are secured, and there are guards, and unless you're a Minbari

									you're not getting in.)  And most of the TV studios I've been in have

									been the same.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878843545 It was mainly Earth that bore the burden of the great

									Burn, and yes, that was the one Garibaldi got into....


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878956489 <em>Wouldn't the colonies offer Earth some help?</em><br>

									Some probably would offer to help...but if technology is now

									suspect, some might not want that help...other colonies might be of the

									"screw 'em, they got what they deserved" perspective...often politics

									gets in the way of charity.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878761612 "By any chance, is the post-apocalyptic religious order

									shown in "Deconstruction . ." a direct decendant of Brother Theo's

									order on Babylon 5?"


									<p>

									It's altogether possible....


									<p>

									And Theo is only awaiting a story worth bringing him in for.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878956403 Interesting aside...for the last 6-8 months, I've been

									doing a fair amount of research into medieval England, especially the

									medieval church, for a play I'm writing (which may become a novel if I'm

									not careful).  Dumped several hundred dollars on a massive order from

									Amazon.com back a few months ago to fill out what I needed.  That was

									what tangentially led me into the post-Burn sequence in

									"Deconstruction."  My brain has been full of monks for the last 8

									months or so, and knowing the role they played in maintaining secular

									knowledge from about 500 AD and for some time thereafter, that seemed

									the perfect route to go that would also resonate with the look of the

									Rangers and the religious caste Minbari and the whole feel we were

									setting up.


									<p>

									It was only when I was about halfway into the act that I

									thought, "Oh, crud, this is the same area Canticle explored."  And for

									several days I set it aside and strongly considered dropping it, or

									changing the venue (at one point considered setting it in the ruins of

									a university, but I couldn't make that work realistically...who'd be

									supporting a university in the ruins of a major nuclear war?  Who'd

									have the *resources* I needed?  The church, or what would at least LOOK

									like the church.  My sense of backstory here is that the Anla-shok

									moved in and started little "abbeys" all over the place, using the

									church as cover, but rarely actually a part of it, which was why they

									had not gotten their recognition, and would never get it.  Rome

									probably didn't even know about them, or knew them only distantly.)


									<p>

									Anyway...at the end of the day, I decided to leave it as it was,

									since I'd gotten there on an independent road, we'd already had a

									number of monks on B5, and there's been a LOT of theocratic science

									fiction written beyond Canticle...Gather Darkness, aspects of

									Foundation, others.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878758601 The future wasn't being transmitted back; we were seeing

									the records of the past from the point of view of the final character,

									one million years hence, who has come to collect them prior to the final

									chapter in Earth's history.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@877941396 "My personal nit is that JMS has the sun going nova in

									only a million years. This seems several orders of magnitude too soon

									for me."


									<p>

									Actually, the computer voice specifies that it is continuing to

									note atypical solar emissions...atypical meaning something unusual is

									going on.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@882987516 And what if you, say, interfered substantially with

									the mass of the sun by, say, causing a series of jump points to open

									up *inside* the sun across several days?


								<p>

								   <li>@@@882987516 You'd also substantially decrease the mass of Sol,

									which as I understand it, would result in the sun going nova.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878761096 A lot of folks have found the eventual "going out" of

									Sol to be depressing...but as was stated 'way back in our VERY FIRST

									EPISODE, this is the one thing we can be sure WILL happen, sooner or

									later (probably later).  <em>Ed. note: "Infection" was indeed the first

									episode shot, but aired fourth.</em>


									<p>

									All the more reason to get off the planet, asap.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@879065360 <em>Did the future humans leave the galaxy as the Vorlons

									did?</em><br>

									No point in leaving the galaxy; stars go nova, it only affects

									the immediate vicinity (big as that is).  By this point, they were in

									the position of the Vorlons, and now have to take their (our) place

									guiding the younger races, the next wave, while not getting in the way

									and remembering the lesson of the shadow/vorlon conflict.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@887657681 <em>What about the other races?</em><br>

									The Minbari eventually make it; the Narn and Centauri do not.

									They don't die out, they just don't hit a state of First One-ishness,

									which is darn close to immortality (barring violence).


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878920722 <em>Was Sinclair prescient?  Did you have the sun's

									destruction mapped out way back in season one?</em><br>

									One needn't be prescient...it's *going* to happen one day.


									<p>

									And to the second half...yeah, Deconstruction (or at least the

									events that would go into it)  was mapped out back then.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878022324 I think it's fair to say that Sinclair has been in large

									measure forgotten by Earth by the time of Deconstruction...but Valen

									lives on in the memories of the Minbari...a reasonable trade-off.


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878194707 <em>They were speaking English a million years in the

									future?</em><br>

									That's what you heard, that doesn't mean that's what it was; same as

									when you go to Minbar, they're not speaking English, that's just our

									hearing of it.


									<p>

									<em>Since when do news anchors quote the Bible?</em><br>

									Ted Koppel.


									<p>

									<em>Why were Sheridan's childhood photos in black and white?</em><br>

									Even now portraits are often done in black and white just for artistic

									merit.


									<p>

									<em>NYU is still around in the future?</em><br>

									Trinity College is a working college in Ireland that dates back to the

									American Revolution.  <em>Ed. note: In fact, Trinity College is even

									older than that -- it was founded in 1592.</em>


								<p>

								   <li>@@@878327742 <em>Did Lise and Garibaldi get married?</em><br>

									No, they're not yet married.


								</ul>